"We are more related to orchids than to apes" (P. Sloterdijk)
In addition to their shapes and colors, some flowers are especially appreciated for their fragrance. To the aforementioned freesias, and some species of orchids, we must add those plants that, mainly in summer, imprint on the nights a memory difficult to erase. Jasmines are, in this sense, a must-mention. The degree of sweetness and acidity varies according to the species, from the intoxicating and somewhat invasive Trachelospermum jasminoides, whose helical flower whitens almost completely the green tapestry during the month of June, to what is perhaps the most classic and long-lived version of jasmine, with a flowering -that of the Jasminum grandiflorum- which lasts until mid-September and October. The subtly acrid finish of its characteristic fragrance, so often used in soaps and teas, prevents it from being too cloying, while also fixing it in some remote part of the brain. Speaking of sweet flowers, which permeate summer breezes and mingle with the emotions they evoke, from the past or in the present, we must remember a plant like the Night-blooming jasmine (Cestrum nocturnum), even if its name competes in low glamour with the shape of its flowers. In multitude, elongated and barely open, they form a battalion that installs a honey aroma in the air from which one can hardly free oneself. Nostalgic reminiscences awaken, memories of a life not lived… but in any case already past. It is difficult, at times, to determine that click olfactory, if there are no memories fixed to a smell (in the style of the tasting of the Proustian madeleine). Of course, to stir memory can help some of the many songs that deal with flowers, linked to the fleeting experience or pregnant with love. The next of the fragrant ones we will remember comes in pairs, it has been celebrated in a well-known song, and "it serves to say I love you, I adore you, my life...": perhaps it is the perfume of Gardenia jasminoides one of the most perfect, for being penetrating and complex without falling into excess or losing its structure, comparable only to that of the orange blossom. To this is added the beauty of the flower itself, a fleshy white that unfortunately yellows and wilts in a few days, adopting less flattering tones in its decay.
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